One week ago, the Portland Trail Blazers set an NBA record by going 0-for-20 from three.

The Nuggets came into the Trail Blazers house on Thursday and did them two better.

Denver went 0-for-22 from three to set a new NBA futility record — and still had a chance to win this game, but fell 101-93. In fact, if you throw out the ugly first quarter for Denver they actually would have won this game.

They dug themselves a hole, one they needed a few threes to get out of and those never came.

But they had a chance in this game because they attacked — Denver scored 74 points in the paint. That also led to a lot of free throw attempts (24) and they made 17. Do the math people — Denver made just one mid-range shot in this game, all their points came in the paint or at the line. It’s a very efficient way to play — if you just knock down a few threes.

This game was decided early. The Nuggets scored just 14 first quarter points on 31.8 percent shooting. George Karl was either desperately looking for anything that worked or not over the flu as he used 12 guys in the first quarter. (In reality he was trying to send a message to his starters.) Portland wasn’t lighting it up, shooting just 36 percent but it did hit three threes (Wesley Mathews was 2-of-5 from deep, he finished with 20 points) and only had 1 turnover, so they had the lead by 11 after one quarter. That was a hole Denver could never get out of.

The pace picked up in the second quarter (there were 102 possessions in the game) and with that Denver was at an advantage. They ran, they attacked, they pushed it and it worked. Denver had 31 fast break points to Portland’s seven. At one point the Portland lead got all the way down to three midway through the fourth quarter.

What amazes me is to look back on some boxscores from the Michael Jordan era and before; teams would win games by 10-15 and attempt between 0-5 three point attempts. Even during the time when the three-point line was 22′. I’ve always heard how much the Chicago Bulls benefitted from the shorter three-point line; I suggest you look again, fools. Those teams played in the paint.